The potential of nighttime light remote sensing data to evaluate the development of digital economy: A case study of China at the city level

As one of the new and crucial fields of economic development, the digital economy refers to the economic activities associated with digital technologies and information. The traditional measurement mainly relies on the statistical data, which are regionally specific and labour cost. As an appropriate proxy for socio-economic activities, nighttime light (NTL) remote sensing data was used in this study to explore its potential in estimating the digital economy. Then, the Zipf's law was used to evaluate the growth of the digital economy at the city level. The results show that the total NTL intensity has a logarithmic relationship with the digital economy index and can be estimated for each cities' digital economy growth in China from 2017 to 2020 (R2 ≈ 0.7). An unbalanced distribution and a decentralized polycentric structure of digital economy are found among all cities in China. But the top 100 cities have a relative harmonious development with a better goodness of Zipf's law. Finally, four main incentives behind the digital economy growth were concluded for three stages of the digital economy growth. This study could enrich the understanding of digital economy and have valuable implications for its future growth in China.